There’s something oddly insulting about the claim that whenever a woman wants to lose weight it’s because she’s been brainwashed by society.
This translates to: “Women can’t think for themselves.”
Yes, precisely. That is the message that many so-called body positive influencers, who preach body acceptance and self-love, broadcast whenever they claim that beauty standards pressure women to want to “shrink” themselves.
According to these insecure influencers, a woman lacks the executive function capability to simply look in a mirror and decide, “Hey, my middle is really getting big lately from all the food I’ve been ordering through Door Dash; excess visceral fat is harmful; I don’t want type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure or knee problems from all this weight; gotta lose 50 pounds!”
Medical facts aside, we are not hardwired to find obesity visually appealing, just like we’re not hardwired to find common weeds visually appealing – which is why people don’t cultivate weed gardens or have potted weeds in their home or office.
The idea that women decide to lose weight because they’ve been brainwashed by societal standards might at first sound progressive or protective.
But it quietly assumes that women can’t think for themselves.
Instead of respecting their judgment, this offensive message replaces their reasoning with a cultural puppet master pulling the strings.
That’s not empowerment. That’s condescension. If I want to drop 20 pounds, it’s because, gee, I’d like to be more efficient at jumping and leaping, thank you. And a better cholesterol profile and overall healthier body.
It ain’t because I saw a GLP-1 ad on TV or stumbled upon an Instagram shot of a size 4 influencer in a string bikini sunning herself on a boat. Give me more credit, please.
Huge Double Standard
Adults make decisions about their bodies all the time. People choose to exercise, change their diets, quit smoking, drink less or train for a marathon.
Nobody assumes a man who starts lifting weights has been mentally colonized by “societal muscle standards.”
But when a woman decides she’d like to be leaner and more toned, suddenly the conversation shifts to social conditioning and internalized messaging. The double standard is obvious.
Even if the woman weighs in at 320, many women on Instagram and TikTok will tell her that she doesn’t need to “shrink” her body, and that the only reason she feels a need to is because she’s been programmed by societal beauty standards or weight stigmatization.
Yeah, why don’t we just tell her to her face: You can’t think for yourself. You have the brain of a lizard.
Facts over Programming
It also ignores the very real reasons someone might want to lose weight that have nothing to do with beauty magazines or Instagram filters.
Many people, including many women, simply feel better when they’re lighter and quicker and more physically capable.
With weight loss, joint pain decreases. Energy improves. Physical tasks become easier. Clothing fits better. People look better.
These are ordinary, practical motivations that women understand from their own lived experience, their own independent ability to think critically. Their own eyes.
Nothing Wrong with Wanting to Look Better
Freepik
The funny thing is that so many of these influencers — who push the rabid idea that women are so weak minded that they’re all slaves to society’s beauty standards — think nothing of wearing two pounds of makeup, dying their hair, burning it to change its shape, adding phony looking extensions, wearing fake nails and getting piercings on their face.
They subscribe to beauty standards as they relate to hair, skin, lips and clothes, but then insist that intentional weight loss is the product of being indoctrinated by a fatphobic society. Good Lord.
I wonder how many of them poke fun at a woman whose hair is “so late 1990s” or whose clothes are “so 2010,” but will then preach that brainwashing is at the core of intentional weight loss, even in morbidly obese women with weight related health issues.
Wanting to look more visually appealing isn’t illegitimate. Humans naturally care about appearance.
Grooming, clothing, haircuts and fitness are all ways people present themselves to the world.
Pretending that aesthetic preference is automatically oppressive removes personal agency from the equation. It presumes cognitive incompetence.
What’s ironic is that the “You’ve been brainwashed” argument ends up doing the same thing it claims to oppose: policing women’s choices.
Influencers are declaring authority over a woman’s motivations. Definitely insulting.
And of course, they’d never feel this way about a man who wants to put on some muscle and hence changes his diet and joins a gym to support this goal.
Let’s Assume Competence in Women
A healthier perspective is to assume competence. Most adults are perfectly capable of reflecting on their own goals.
They can decide whether they want to prioritize comfort, strength, health markers, athletic performance or appearance. Sometimes the answer includes weight loss. Sometimes it doesn’t.
- Treating women as though they lack the executive functioning to make those decisions is not respectful.
- It’s a subtle form of paternalism disguised as social critique.
If the goal is genuine autonomy, the simplest approach is also the most respectful one: believe women when they say why they’re making a choice about their own bodies.
